IN REPLY to Cllr Elfan Ap Rees' letter in last week's Mercury - what a lot of rubbish! Getting financial advice from a Conservative is like relying on the Betamax video to record Eastenders. It was quite good in the 1980s, but just isn't doing the busines

IN REPLY to Cllr Elfan Ap Rees' letter in last week's Mercury - what a lot of rubbish! Getting financial advice from a Conservative is like relying on the Betamax video to record Eastenders. It was quite good in the 1980s, but just isn't doing the business any more. From April council tax will rise by 4.9 percent. Liberal Democrats know this is more than many can afford and above inflation. That's why we are not sitting in the town hall twiddling our thumbs. We are working to find savings and cut costs. We are fighting hard to get a fair share of Government cash.What we are not doing, as the Conservatives did, is propose cuts to services upon which many vulnerable elderly people and children in Weston depend. We will not seek, as the Conservatives did, to set a budget that we know is not sustainable and will increase costs in future years.When you look at their record it is easy to see why the Conservatives can't make their sums add up. In 2002, Conservatives in charge of North Somerset put council tax up by 12 per cent. Shocking - the only double figures rise in North Somerset's history. Except of course for the following year, when the Conservatives in charge put council tax up by 16 per cent!I know that North Somerset Council under Liberal Democrat leadership is far from perfect and that we have a long way to go. However, whatever their rhetoric, Conservatives in power have cost us all a lot more.MIKE BELL - Executive Member for Finance & PerformanceNorth Somerset CouncilEDITOR'S NOTE: This correspondence is now closed.